7215 Schuster St, Las Vegas, NV 89118

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Month: July 2015

Ever since I made the little booklet for my missive mission mail, I’ve been into making little mail booklets for everyone. It’s so much fun! I like that it’s kind of like mail art within mail art. I do like to include bits and things in the stuff that I do send out, although not all the time, but the booklet is kind of it’s own thing. They are a little more time consuming though.

I put this together for Supa’flous, or Sam. She sends me really unique mail so I thought I should return the favor. After she received it, she praised it on her instagram, which made me feel nice! I’m happy that it was well received. She deserves the best mail!

Currently, however, I’m sitting on 7+ letters. I can never seem to keep up! I had a nice momentum going at the beginning of the year but I quickly crashed and burned due to other life happenings and laziness. I think I really need to start making to-do lists! I can never remember all the things I’m trying to accomplish or complete when I don’t write them down.

I’ve been a busy bee adding some new stationery sets to the shop! These sets were all made from some mixed media pieces I did. This is probably one of my favorite ways to make new stationery sets! I’ve been having a hard time collaging since getting more into paints and stuff. With these pieces, I do a little something-something on a 4×6 blank cardstock. I actually buy those blank watercolor postcard packs and they work so well. From there, I use paints, stencils, alcohol inks, stamps, and basically anything I can find. Sometimes I add scraps of paper but most of the time I don’t. After I finish with the postcard, I scan them into my computer and manipulate them in Photoshop to fit my stationery templates.

Another thing I have been doing with mail art pieces is the same process but using that as more of a background for a collage. I finish the mixed media pieces in record time. Collage seems to take me 30 minutes to an hour, depending on inspiration and motivation. I love just throwing paints everywhere and not really caring how it turns out. Sometimes it’s terrible but most of the time it’s pretty cool!

I finally went to the gum wall! People have always mentioned it to me whenever I head up to Seattle but, for whatever reason, I never checked it out. When we went to Seattle in June, I made sure to stop by. I love it! I’m just in awe of the amount of gum that has been stuck to the walls over time, and the creativity of some. I enjoy hanging around the Pike Place Market area in general but I really appreciate the alleys, graffiti, and weird things that you can stumble upon. I don’t think there is anything this cool in Portland but we have our fair share of neat things! I do wish there was more street art on the West side but whatcha gonna do.

My other hobby, outside of letter writing, is lifting weights. I mean, I guess you could call it a hobby. It’s almost more of a “thing I do”, not something I’m passionate about. But I love it. My boyfriend introduced me to weight lifting when we first met, he tried to get me squatting within the first month of us dating. It wasn’t until after we moved to Rhode Island that I began to take it seriously. I can’t believe it’s been three years since I first picked up baby weights.

I have always been the type of person who hated exercising or physical activity with a passion. I always begged my mom to write me notes to get out of P.E. in school. When I broke my arm in elementary school, it was a godsend. I remember the one (and only) time that I ran the entire mile in P.E. I swore I was dying. I get absolutely nothing out of feeling exhausted. Needless to say, when my boyfriend brought up exercising, I was quick to tune him out and shut it down. I won’t do it!

JK. How quick feelings change. To be honest, I still absolutely hate exercising; I just don’t view lifting weights as exercise. Yeah, it can be difficult but I don’t run out of breath when doing it and I never feel tired. It’s nothing like running or doing some aerobic exercise. It’s just about working up your strength. You start with baby weights and move to adult weights. It’s easy in the weirdest way possible.

I encourage everyone, especially women, to lift weights. There is seriously nothing like being and feeling strong. Muscles are amazing. I flexed my bicep the other day and was in awe of how my arm has changed. Of course, my muscles are still hidden under fat because I can’t be bothered to eat like an adult. That’s also another really great thing about lifting weights, which can be summed up by a quote by Dan John that is on my gym worksheets, “When she presses an impressive weight overhead, her entire system has to gather up resources, and then adapt and recover from the effort. When little Edna at my gym thinks the five-pound dumbbell is heavy, she isn’t going to tax her body very hard. Edna can’t eat cake.”

If you lift weights, or are curious about the kinds of lifts I do, check out my Fitocracy.

Sometimes I am just completely in awe of the natural creativity of folks. For instance, this pen pal I met at the first Portland Correspondence Co-op, Supa’Flous. She wasn’t familiar with the world of mail art until that day, although she was familiar with sending and receiving mail. I chatted with her about the community that I have basically grown up with, the mail art community. I showed her some examples of mail art, letters that I had brought with me, and she seemed instantly hooked! We exchanged addresses and that was that.

The first thing I received from her, all I could think was that she was a natural! Her drawings are unique and she has some really awesome ideas of non-traditional mail. Here are some examples of the awesome mail she sends my way!

I was lucky enough to vacation in Hawaii last year, in October. I actually won the trip through my employer! To be honest, I had no interest in ever seeing Hawaii but a free trip is a free trip. My reservations about the place completely changed once we landed. We stayed in Kona, with one night spent in Honolulu. As I suspected, Honolulu was like a prettier Las Vegas. Tourists everywhere!

Although the trip has came and went, I had one stray roll of film that I just got developed. Took me long enough, eh? I absolutely love shooting film but I usually can’t be bothered to get it developed in a timely fashion. When I do remember that I have rolls to develop, I end up forgetting to bring them with me when I leave the apartment. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the roll!

Trees everywhere! Staying in Kona was such a great choice; it was incredibly green and super rainy.

Driving around on a super foggy and gloomy day. I really enjoyed the contrast of the black concrete against the green landscape.

We went up to Mauna Kea for an evening and saw the sun set above the clouds. I didn’t want to leave.

I really enjoyed seeing palm trees that didn’t look out of place. Growing up in Vegas, palm trees are everywhere they don’t belong.